Monday, January 23, 2012

EDC & Parks officials accepted bribes; bribemaker in the clear

Free dinners, free luncheons and barbecues, even a free $4,000 honeymoon in Istanbul – three city officials overseeing construction of Manhattan’s High Line received these and more from the chief contractor on the project. The company, Kiska Construction Corporation, had more than $60 million in contracts with the city’s Economic Development Corporation to “pretty much build 75 percent of the High Line,” Kiska vice president Alp Baysal told The New York World, “from the structure holding it all up to the finishing touches on the rails.”

In 2008, the officials who took those goodies from Kiska received something else in addition to full stomachs and a hotel room: thousands of dollars in fines from the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB).

City employees are barred from receiving gifts in excess of $50. Yet the arm of the city’s ethics law does not reach to private citizens, developers, contractors and companies, like Kiska, which repeatedly induce city officials to commit ethics violations. Kiska continues to be eligible to serve as a contractor on city projects, including the future third phase of the High Line, to be built north of 30th Street. Planning for that final section of the elevated park is now underway.

Journalism school students 1, Mainstream Media 0. (Too busy rewriting Bloomberg administration press releases.) But next time, name names. Allow me to assist this time:

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